1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus, medium, and method for measuring body fat, and more particularly, to an apparatus, medium, and method for measuring body fat, where body fat thickness is measured in a desired area of a body by applying a variable frequency current to the desired area.
2. Description of the Related Art
A body, e.g., a human body, may be made up of mainly four elements, including water, protein, fat, and inorganic matter. A proportion of the elements may be different depending on an individual's heath conditions such as sex or weight, but can be approximated to respective proportions of 55:20:20:5. It is known that the proportion of the four human body elements can be identified by measuring body water amount. This is because the protein and the body water are main elements of human muscle and they are proportional to one another. Specifically, healthy muscle contains 70% water and 27% protein. The inorganic matter in a human body includes the weight of the bones, and the weight of the bones is closely associated with muscle amount. In short, protein and inorganic matter amounts in a human body can be obtained from the body water amount, and thus the body fat amount can be calculated by subtracting the sum of the body water, protein, and inorganic matter amounts from the total weight. Currently, the most frequently used method of measuring body fat is a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), with there being a lot of other methods, such as an analysis of body density in water, computed tomography (CT), and a measurement of subcutaneous fat thickness.
The bioelectrical impedance analysis method employs the fact that the body water amount is inversely proportional to the bioelectrical impedance. This method is advantageously fast, simple, and non-invasive. If a weak alternating current (AC) electrical signal is applied to a human body, it would flow through body water having a high electrical conductivity. Depending on the body water amount, the path width for passing the electricity can be determined. The measurement value of the path width is the bioelectrical impedance. According to a principle of measuring body elements based on the bioelectrical impedance, the bioelectrical impedance is measured by applying a weak AC electrical signal of 1 mA having a frequency band of 50 kHz to a human body. Then, the body water amount is calculated based on the bioelectrical impedance. Also, the protein amount and the inorganic matter amount are calculated based on the body water amount, and the body fat amount is calculated based on the protein amount, the inorganic matter amount, and a patient's weight.
Accordingly, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional method of measuring body fat, with operations of the conventional body fat measuring method will be described with reference to FIG. 1.
In the conventional method of measuring body fat, by using a bioelectrical impedance analysis, is based on the human body being divided into five impedance lumps, as illustrated in FIG. 2, such that four or eight electrodes are used to apply an electrical current into a human body and measure body fat amount. More specifically, as shown in FIG. 1A, an electrical current can be applied to positions 100 and 105 on an arm and leg, respectively, and a corresponding voltage can be detected across positions 110 and 115 of the respective arm and leg. Then, the body fat amount can be obtained by using the relationship of the current to the detected voltage. In addition, fat amounts in other lumps of a human body may be measured. For example, as shown in FIG. 1B, an electrical current can be applied to both arms at respective positions 120 and 125, and a voltage drop across both arms at positions 130 and 135 may be detected. Also, as shown in FIG. 1C, an electrical current can be applied to positions 140 and 145 on a respective arm and leg, and a voltage drop across both legs at positions 150 and 155 may be detected. Further, as shown in FIG. 1D, an electrical current can be applied to positions 160 and 165 on a respective arm and leg, with a voltage drop across a position 170 of the other arm and a position 175 of the other leg may be detected.                According to the conventional method of measuring body fat, as shown in FIG. 2, the body fat measurement is limited to five representative lumps of a human body. Therefore, it cannot be applied to any particular area of a human body, such as an abdominal region, a chest, a shoulder, and a forearm, which have recently been found to be necessary.        